Skip to main content

We Shall Soldier Through Friday the 13th and Emerge Stronger Individuals

Since I am not able to do Dewey's Readathon this spring (curse you, conflicting events!), I think I'm going to do a mini one on my own this Sunday. And oh, I am excited. There will be prizes! For me. And challenges! For me. And snacks! That I would share, but you all live so far away. 

I'll probably end up reading 30 pages of The Woman in White and call it a day. ONWARD!


My church's book group, which we somewhat cultishly call People of the Book, met last night to discuss the first half of How the Irish Saved Civilization. This book kicks ass. True, I am halfway through and he only just got to the Irish and not so much to them but more St Patrick, but it's one of those books that's like "LET ME SUMMARIZE HUGE SWATHS OF HISTORY IN A COUPLE AMUSING SENTENCES." And he's so SMART but interesting and he got me to read Plato and learn more about Augustine (we all know who Augustine is?) and now I want to read the Táin. I don't know if anything else could've made me want to read that. 

For those who are poor uninformed saps like I was yesterday, the Táin is kind of an early Irish epic about cattle rustling. It has kickass characters like Queen Medb (...pronounced 'Maeve') and asshole characters like Conchobar (pronounced 'Connor.' obviously.) and I don't understand Gaelic but thank GOD Thomas Kinsella did an awesome translation of it into English.

Early Irish culture seems to have been much, much kinder to women than most of its European/English contemporaries. There's a parallel to the old "you complete these tasks and you can marry the girl" story, only in the Irish version, the girl herself gives the hero the tasks. The aforementioned Queen Medb is one of the most fleshed-out characters I've read in epic literature, and it's only later it seems that women got so relatively circumscribed (damn you, Augustinian Church!).

Finally, for your Friday the 13th edification, here's Sue Perkins reading a book. Or looking cheekily at the camera, rather.

WHAT IS SHE READING I MUST KNOW

edit: Shelf Actualization (yeah, I'm naming you by your blog name) has found what book it is -- The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham. Wikipedia informs me 'John Wyndham' is his pen-name, because his REAL name is John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris. Yeah. Pen-name NEEDED, sir.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book Blogger Hop, Pt II

All right. The question for this week is:  "Do you read only one book at a time, or do you have several going at once?" Oh-ho my. I have an issue with book commitment. I start a new book, and it's exciting and fresh, and I get really jazzed about it, and then 20% of the way through, almost without fail, I start getting bored and want to start another book. I once had seven books going at the same time, because I kept getting bored and starting new ones. It's a sickness. Right now I'm being pretty good and working on The Monk , Northanger Abbey , Kissing the Witch , and I'm about to start Waiting for the Barbarians since my friend lent it to me. But The Monk and NA are basically books I only read when I'm at work, so I don't see it so much as working on four books, as having books in different locales. Yes. This entry wasn't as good as some of the others, but I shall rally on the morrow. Yes I shall.
22 comments
Read more

Fanfiction and Why It Doesn't Suck

Like most female 20somethings, I was at one point very into the fangirling scene. I wrote fanfiction, I made music videos, put together fanmixes, and created horrible graphics using a version of Photoshop I or someone bearing a resemblance to me possibly downloaded in my college dorm room off Limewire. I would here like to interrupt myself by stating that perhaps “most” was the wrong word, as I have met many normal female 20somethings who don’t have a fricking clue what I’m talking about when I use words like “fangirl” or “ship” as a verb involving the romantic involvement of two fictional people. So by “most” I mean “most of the people I met online in fangirl communities.” Or perhaps “all” in that case. Anyway. Fanfiction is probably always going to be controversial, in the dumbest way something can be controversial. Are we talking about climate change? Well, no, we’re talking about whether or not it’s at all okay for a 15-year-old to write a scene where Mulder and Scully get stuck ...
7 comments
Read more

Harry Potter 2013 Readalong Signup Post of Amazingness and Jollity

Okay, people. Here it is. Where you sign up to read the entire Harry Potter series (or to reminisce fondly), starting January 2013, assuming we all survive the Mayan apocalypse. I don't think I'm even going to get to Tina and Bette's reunion on The L Word until after Christmas, so here's hopin'. You guys know how this works. Sign up if you want to. If you're new to the blog, know that we are mostly not going to take this seriously. And when we do take it seriously, it's going to be all Monty Python quotes when we disagree on something like the other person's opinion on Draco Malfoy. So be prepared for your parents being likened to hamsters. If you want to write lengthy, heartfelt essays, that is SWELL. But this is maybe not the readalong for you. It's gonna be more posts with this sort of thing: We're starting Sorceror's/Philosopher's Stone January 4th. Posts will be on Fridays. The first post will be some sort of hilar...
1 comment
Read more